Campbell: Even Corbyn’s aides say he isn’t fit for job
AIDES of Jeremy Corbyn have secretly agreed he was not up to the job of Labour leader, Alastair Campbell claimed yesterday.
In a bombshell intervention, Tony Blair’s former spin doctor said he ‘no longer’ wants to be part of the party under Mr Corbyn.
Mr Campbell was expelled in May after admitting voting Liberal Democrat in the European elections as a protest and had planned to appeal.
But in an open letter to Mr Corbyn, he said his party leader did not understand the scale of the Brexit crisis and should make way for someone who did.
Later Mr Campbell added that he did not want to return because Labour had been ‘taken over’ by former Communists and it was ‘time to stop pretending ...this is the Labour Party that we really believe in’.
He also warned: ‘There is a danger that we’re going to be destroyed as a serious credible political force unless we face up to the reality of what’s going on.’
In a tweet after the letter had been published, Mr Campbell suggested that Labour staff – including people working directly for Mr Corbyn and members of the Shadow Cabinet – agreed with him. ‘Thanks for all the kind messages today,’ he wrote.
‘The ones that mean the most are those from people still working for Labour including Jeremy Corbyn and the Shadow Cabinet who agree with my analysis but are still trying to fight for change from within.’
Last week, former prime minister Mr Blair side-stepped questions about whether he will vote Labour at the next election.
Pressed three times on BBC2’s Newsnight, the closest he came to endorsing the party he led to three election victories was that he ‘wants’ to vote Labour.
In his letter, Mr Campbell wrote: ‘With some sadness but absolute certainty, I have reached the conclusion that I no longer wish to stay in the party, even if I should be successful in my appeal or legal challenge.’
He told Mr Corbyn: ‘The culture you have helped to create has made the party one that I feel no longer truly represents my
‘Destroyed as a credible force’
values or the hopes I have for Britain.’ Mr Campbell added that the Labour leader did not understand the gravity of the UK’s situation and was likely to lose a potential general election.
‘I see no sign that you and your office have grasped the seriousness of what is happening, let alone devised or begun to execute a strategy to respond and defeat it,’ he wrote.
On Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Campbell replied when asked if he would join the Lib Dems: ‘No, I don’t feel I’m close to other parties. But if we get to a general election and the choice is Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn all sorts of things are going to happen because that is not a choice this country finds remotely palatable.’
Mr Campbell said he wanted to support Labour but Mr Corbyn’s party had ‘been taken over by people who until recently were Communists, they were Stalinists and they still are in my view.’
On a visit to Lancashire, Mr Corbyn told reporters that he was ‘disappointed when anyone resigns or leaves’ the party.
He added that Labour has ‘half-amillion members who are very keen to get out there and campaign on issues of social justice’.
Labour climate spokesman Denise Rowley argued that the party ‘has always been a broad church’.
Labour’s candidate in Mr Johnson’s Uxbridge seat has suggested the US government was involved in the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Ali Milani, 24, last night deleted the tweets written when he was a student after they were revealed on the Guido Fawkes website. He has previously apologised for anti-Semitic tweets.